Every genre has its believers and nonbelievers; those who will praise, and those who will deride, those who will criticize and those who will deny its status. And while hip-hop’s birth cannot be traced to any significant event, the best releases now represented by the genre have grown past mere showoff flows, diss-fests and pointless rants about booze, cheese and women. At its best, hip-hop is a tool of empowerment, to inform and promote peace.
“The Akword Experience,” a recent release from a group of Portland-based hip-hop artists, serves as a prime example.
On the track “Real Thingz (featuring: MyG),” one flow goes, “I give respect and learn to live with my defects / build strength out of my weaknesses to build up this power in humility inherent in my weakness.” And then the chorus, “Real things / relevant to our struggle / real things / can’t let the cycle crumble / real things.”
The track “Mind CNTRL (Featuring Mic. Crenshaw and Gen.Erik)” tackles the issues of a media-oriented culture that keeps the masses distracted. It opens with a sample of a man saying, “The American people are conditioned by network TV, by local news, to believe their communities are more dangerous than they actually are,” before “The most powerful weapons keeping our minds controlled / distracted from the essence so we can’t find the soul.” And later, “We procure weapons to ensure protection, when the only thing that’s guaranteed is death.”
“Manifest Destiny (Featuring Habibullah)” is one of the album’s most empowering tracks, with lyrics such as, “We’re all equal / not a person who’s less than me, let’s go ahead and manifest our destinies. We’ll fulfill the maximums of our potential / We want to be free but that’s all in the mental.”
One downside of this release is perhaps the instrumental accompaniment, which seems entirely composed of computerized beats, loops and sampling. More creative use of these techniques would have helped, or perhaps even the integration of live instrumentation. Still, there are notable efforts. “Dreamz (Featuring Beau Bryan w/SNAUFU) uses a nice Latin loop, but beyond the introduction, the music fails to match the stellar flows. Other interesting tracks are “Maximize” and the all-instrumental “Sacrifice,” the album’s closer.
Essence is a theme that runs throughout the 16 tracks of “The Akword Experience.” More than anything, it is the intention behind the words which must be recognized. This is the hope for any piece of artwork that attempts to move the listener to action.
More information and free tracks from the release are available at the Web site http://www.Spark1200.com.